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12/14/2012 11:00AM

MacGuineas Sounds Optimistic Note on Fiscal Cliff

Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget president Maya MacGuineas says she's optimistic Washington will avert the fiscal cliff but says a long term deal to address the deficit needs to be a part of it.

This transcript has been automatically generated and may not be 100% accurate.

... I ... H H H the fiscal cliff welcome the DC bureau The Wall Street Journal's online politics show on Jerry Sithe and for the six interview internment by my colleague David Wessel ... and we're happy that with this with that Apple's real budget Ekspres Maya McInnes president pretty for responsible federal budget ... and now leader of a new ... deficit cutting effort will fix that ... thinks of picturing a thank you thanks for having me ... so my ... hubby ... decided to be optimistic about this week as we approach the fiscal cliff this combination of automatic tax increases and big spending cuts that isn't the end of the year without a deal are you optimistic it would be optimistic on ... the roller coaster had the legal rollercoaster ... I am optimistic I hope that's not misplaced because I think the stakes are so high ... but I remain convinced that you have two leaders were negotiating a steal right now the present mayor ... who really want to get a deal they both believe it's important for the country ... I think from their own collectors they see some political upside in getting a deal ... so I think that the main ... issues of the two people negotiating of wanting to succeed are there ... um I'm word for lots of reasons at the same time which is ... I think the time ... kind of ... confusion of where we're headed what's going happen and managing expectations has lasted too long haven't heard a whole lot of talk about realistically what would be in a deal ... I'm worried that the extremes on both sides are ... lining up to oppose the deal ... because let's be honest anything that they come up with Israel is going to be very hard ... aam ... and I worry that there will be and aam SA opposition everything announ something unkind to Real's ... all the countries that have lead me ... out said over the past year I do think that there's been a lot of growing understanding and House and Senate about ... the importance of this issue ... not one of the fiscal cliff because of the so bad the economy in the country ... but also coming up with the real debt deal that deals with revenues until spending deal with entitlements ... helps to fix these problems because otherwise ... Congress and White House and the remaining applicants paralyzed as it has been for the past two years and we all ... agree that's no way to govern ... but he learned over the last couple weeks is drawn to these platoons chief executives ... are much more visible last couple weeks ago the last five years and such ... alright so well what Fix the Debt started as was a real concern that last around the debt ceiling where you have to serve unbelievable I think all of us watching how close we came to defaulting ... on and we heard from lots of members of Congress who we were working with on this issue ... you know where are the business leaders ... that we don't hear enough about this issue ... and we decided to start reaching out to CEO isn't saying you know how this affects your company houses affecting the economy hand ... do you see how important is that we all get involved in helping to push ... on politicians to these hard things and one time or when the deal ... and the CEO of perspective ... it is so ... clearly a detriment to long-term planning investing ... creating jobs that many of them isn't a vigil CEOs wanted to Stepford and make that case from their own perspective and I've been coming to Washington to when they come to Washington to meet with members of Congress to make them away ... firmly believing in democracy is a good idea or they ... discussed as ... well a lot of well that's not how we doing business ... with the charm she fell ... on the obviously ad business negotiation and Washington edition is ... negotiations completely different ... one other things I've observed is that ... aam when the CEO is talk about tuning negotiation they talk about the need ... to give both sides cover so they can both leave the table and say that they got something like ... an LBC in Washington he seeks the two sides honestly trying to break the other side which makes it so much harder to get gas ... on what has been really good with the CEO meetings is ... they just don't see the world in partisan terms ... take a look at Washington as the two teams trying to each other up ... while the government ... has to have ... a non functioning system ... they come away having ... mixed feelings different meetings go different ways and they are able to deliver the message which I should stress is ... really focused on the bigger picture issue of meaning to get a debt deal ... instead of a normal special interest or self interest that you hear what people lobby so often happens ... in my my incredibly refreshing about the CEO to take a stab reporting got involved ... he really is about putting the country on stable pack and making the case from their perspective ... aam and we also ... have built a group of twenty five hundred small businesses ... three hundred thousand citizens ... and purposes the kind of ... talking a different way about this not ... what can you do for us or what we don't want to do but say ... we have the because this is gonna be very typical their deals and then there are deals um I wonder what in your estimation is based on conversations you have what would be incredible deal in this case the ... president talks the four trillion dollars the Republicans talk about this and that can mean a lot of different things ... what's incredible deal that will convince you ... to say nothing of these business executives in the public that the debt is really be dealt with at ... the port remains a lot of things depending on what's in it and where it starts ... the real trick here is can you put in place a big deal and not all the D tells be filled out but can you put in place the Big framework ... on the D tells in the coming months ... that's big enough that it stabilizes the debt ... the key here is that that that cannot be going faster than the economy ... in fact we see on a downward path ... balance the budget anytime soon which is always to be shooting for the fiscal hole is too deep ... but if he can at least get something where the economy's going faster than that that ... that makes the whole situation sustainable ... on the other keys to a two which is ... there's a deal that could be that big but would just be I'm so gonna miss designed France's it just lacks all public investment what raises revenues and all the wrong way since then the right ways ... you would wanna do that either so something that's consistent with ... good governance and economic growth is also one but the real trick here is ... big enough so that that that's no longer going faster than the economy was on a downward path ... to one for trains use a shorthand for meaning that he met a lot of teams a complaint budget on war Eagle say ... cured is four trillion but the throwing a whole lot of things to say on number has to be used to make it does have to get but they can have ways to make it look better by putting in your savings things like that ally was a word when ... is an indirect again we see the ... great tended to happen and ... then Rene Kyi had a press conference this week ... and he started out with a very eloquent ... COMMENTARY just how horrible plantains loss of human potential and what what ... I hear people asking me why a given that interest rates are so low ... given that the economy so we get so important we deal with debt and deficit net on treatments ... yes I guess that many many times ... I'm ... exactly critically important to look out ... he was to be counted shouldn't be ... too much to ask this country right we've always been a little to do it while giving the retail and then so going for but then it is gonna be tough but ... the bottom line is you need to think still a short-term economies not as strong as it should be ... bring on attack that should be ... and you don't wanna put too much deficit reduction in place to quickly ... at present is what you don't wanna go off the cliff because it would actually be too much and I say that as somebody who really thinks deficit reduction is important ... but that doesn't mean you wanna wait for two or three years to put in place the plane and ... because that's so damaging to CA finance stability ... market credibility you want to place a plea and now ... as actually finding of fact desirable ... if it doesn't feel too much deficit reduction in the short term ... but instead wait still the economy's stronger footing and the says all these changes in gradually ... add to their best we can deal with short-term critical ... jobs challenge ... in the need for stability and growth ... I also Jubilee from talking tell us it's all businesses in particular ... the way things are on hold right now ... business owners are not investing ... and not expanding ... they have no idea what's around the corner ... and I don't believe that you'll get some upside from ... just having the knowledge of what the next two years will hold in terms of the budget to other that will help the economy I don't believe you can have a strong recovery ... until we have a debt deal in place ... else a doubling of the debt deal sufficient to ensure stock I know the the gradual approach that takes you to one of the real political hang ups here for for Republicans in particular which is these things we've also heard a lot which is ... how can we be sure that if we agree to the tax cuts now on the spending cuts over the next ten years will ever see tax increase ... today the tax increases now but the spending cuts over the next ten years looks at ... what can be done and is there an atmosphere at work here in which people can have enough confidence that the whole deal will ... happen wanted to meet ... I was actually right I hear this all the time that most people who would not like to raise taxes are not generally Republicans are people would wanna raise revenues would be willing to know ... if they knew that there is revenue go for deficit reduction ... but there were a gift every race in the wrong way and then just go to a broken spending and continued for spending so ... in a deal that has all types of budget as part of it ... but also to find a way to lock in their savings to make Incredibles we don't see the unraveling of the spending cuts that is where there's a big concern ... on one of the ideas is ... how you change the enforcement mechanisms on a deal ... because ... I like anybody till we talk about how they can look in ten years in the future ... it's really hard to lock in anything for ten years and to keep on track ... so you wanna make sure that you've built in ... hurdles you can and do those spending capture their spending changes ... on things like higher thresholds to change the budgetary capsule in one go more senators the higher buffers for voting against it exactly that something of a gang of six and a recommendation ... you wanna think about limiting the growth of entitlement programs ... relative to the economy so that ... you can change the policies that are at work over to learn a lot more about health care in the coming years ... we should do to keep making changes to Medicare Medicaid other health care savings systems ... but you wanna lock in the growth rates friends so they can grow faster than a certain amount ... that should help ensure the savings will stay on track ... my McGuinness it didn't have an interesting and long holiday season